Carry You Home
by Renaly
Summary: "Marriage doesn't mean you're automatically going to change. It just means you have this other person to do all your weird crap with."


**A/N:** Warnings for language, alcohol, fire, and general drunken shenanigans.

* * *

In terms of bachelor parties, it wasn't bad. According to Peter, the groom—Sergio—was supposed to be getting shitfaced, and Sergio might have been, except for two problems.

"I don't think the Wonder Twins have blinked once this entire night," he whispered to Alan. "They're trying to kill me, I know it."

Miksa and Toluk sat in a dark corner of the bar. In unison, they lifted their drinks and took a sip. Their eyes never left Sergio.

"Now, why would they try to kill you?" Alan asked, keeping half his focus on Peter, who was attempting to drink two beers at once.

Sergio stared at him. "Uh, maybe because I'm marrying their sister in two days?"

"I thought they got over their hatred of you?"

"No, they just stopped serving my dinner in a dog bowl. And that's only because Anana threatened a repeat of 'the third grade incident.'"

Now Alan turned to him. "What's the third grade incident?"

"I was afraid to ask," Sergio confessed. "They turned paler than you when she mentioned it."

* * *

The bar was rather nice, Anana thought. Her companions seemed to be having a good time: Whatever drink Doreen had ordered had caused the bartender to regard her with a mix of fear and awe, and Julia was already required to help Sarah back from the bathroom.

As they approached the table, Sarah stumbled, and Julia caught her just before she hit the ground.

"Wow," Anana said. "You really are a lightweight."

Jules gently set her girlfriend down in a chair. "Well, she's only like ninety pounds."

Sarah giggled, patting Jules's face as Jules sat down next to her. "You're pretty," she slurred.

Jules nodded patiently and pulled out a hairclip, tying back Sarah's hair out of her face. "Well, women have less of the enzyme dehydrogenase to help us break down alcohol."

"Cytochrome P450 2E1 and catalase also break down alcohol to acetaldehyde," Sarah mumbled. Anana was rather impressed at her eloquence.

"Blah blah blah, if I wanted to hear science talk, I'd have stayed in the lab," Doreen said. "Wanna see how many milk cartons I can bench press?"

Anana stared at her. "…Kinda, yeah."

"To the car!" Doreen announced.

"Okay, but remember," Julia interjected, "I'm the designated driver—no, _give me the keys, Doreen_."

After a harrowing trip to the grocery store and a car ride that had started out normal and turned somewhat scary when Anana realized that Amy DuBois was _sitting right next to her_ even though Anana had no recollection of her actually getting in the car, they arrived at Doreen's gym. (Jules had refused to take them to her own.)

Julia shook the doors of the gym. "Locked," she announced.

"Maybe cause it's almost one in the morning?" Anana ventured.

Amy stepped forward. "Don't worry, I got this." She pulled out a knife from—Anana actually didn't know where she'd been keeping it.

"Um, who gave Amy a knife?" Sarah asked nervously.

Amy smiled at her. "No one gives me them. I never not have one."

"Why did you invite her?" Julia muttered to Anana.

"I honestly don't remember inviting her," Anana whispered back.

* * *

Kyle plopped down in the chair next to Sergio, grinning widely. "Heeeyyy."

Alan reached over and gently tugged the drink out of Kyle's hand.

"Okay, pretty boy," Peter began, "answer me something."

Kyle nodded and leaned forward attentively.

"You are asexual."

"Correct," Kyle said.

"Yet you spent the last hour flirting your way across the bar."

"I did." Kyle folded his hands in front of him.

Peter waited a moment. "…Why?"

Shrugging, Kyle reached for his glass, but Alan pushed it further out of his reach. "It's fun," he said simply. "Of course, it does backfire sometimes."

Alan raised an eyebrow. "Backfires how?"

Kyle reached into his pockets and pulled out a handful of napkins and pieces of paper, dumping them on the table. "Sometimes they give me their number."

Peter picked up several scraps of paper and examined them, before nodding decisively. "I hate you," he declared.

"Here." Sergio gathered the numbers up and handed them back to Kyle. "Go give them to Anana's brothers. Maybe they'll finally crack a smile."

"Not a bad idea," Kyle said. "What kind of people do they like? I've got a bunch of different options."

"I _literally fucking hate you_ ," Peter said.

* * *

They had just duct taped the third milk carton onto the bar when the doors burst open.

"Freeze!" the police officers shouted.

They all swung their hands up. There was a _thud_ as Sarah fell to the floor, and Anana could feel Julia wince beside her.

"Drop it!" one officer ordered.

Doreen glanced at the last carton she was holding. "Uh, yeah, about that—"

"I said drop it!"

"But—"

"You have three seconds to drop it!"

"You're kidding, right?"

"One!"

"Oh for fuck's sake, can I just set it down—?"

"Two!"

Heaving a great sigh, Doreen let go of the carton, and it smashed apart on the floor. Milk splattered against their ankles and drenched the carpet.

Anana pointed at the damp ground. "We will pay for that."

* * *

Sergio set his drink down and looked at Alan. "Okay, be honest: Did you volunteer to be the designated driver just so you could keep an eye on Peter?"

"Somebody has to," Alan said with a sigh.

"Yeah, well, heads up. He just got ahold of the karaoke mike." Sergio gestured to the small stage in the bar where Peter was standing.

"Oh, son of a—" Alan pushed his chair back roughly and hurried to the stage. He managed to grab Peter and start to pull him away just as the opening beat of Uptown Funk began playing.

Sergio watched their struggle impassively for a moment. When it was clear Alan was going to win, he turned to his right, where Kyle was staring transfixed into his whiskey glass. "So how's Soren doing?" Sergio asked.

Kyle looked up, excitement in his eyes. "He's doing so great, just. _So_ great. Like, miles ahead of where I was at that age. I mean, he's got _friends_!" Kyle said the word with incredulity.

Clapping a hand on Kyle's shoulder, Sergio tried to ignore the twinge of guilt. "That's wonderful, man."

"Yeah," Kyle sighed happily. He placed his hands firmly on the table and pushed himself up, swaying slightly. "I'm gonna—gonna go—" He waved his hand impatiently, finally managing, "Bathroom."

"If you're not back in 30 minutes, I'll come find you."

Kyle blinked at him. " _Thank you_ ," he said sincerely, his voice full of emotion. He walked away backwards, trying to maintain eye contact and tripping over his chair in the process.

Sergio rubbed his temples. The small smirk forming on his lips promptly disappeared when he looked up and saw that the twins were still staring at him. Their expressions seemed to have softened somewhat, but Sergio made a face at them anyway, and downed another shot.

* * *

Julia shook her head. "I can't believe you dropped the milk."

"I can't believe you dropped your girlfriend," Doreen shot back. "Talk about cold-blooded."

"It was an _accident_. And she's not gonna remember it tomorrow."

"I hope so," said Doreen. "You can't have broken up with two people in our friend group. It'll get weird. Back me up on this, Anana."

"Oh, my _God_ , does it _matter_?" Anana snapped.

Doreen and Julia both paused in their discussion to stare at her. "You alright?" Jules asked.

Their voices were grating on her, and she pressed her fingers to her temples. " _Am I alright?_ Are you _kidding_? Do you have _any_ idea what is going to happen to us?!"

Doreen nodded. "Yeah. We're gonna pay a fine, plead guilty, get some community service, and put this dark time behind us."

Gaping, Anana said, "You're serious. You think we're gonna be able to forget about this? That this isn't something that will affect _the rest of our lives_?!"

At this, the confusion cleared from both Doreen and Julia's faces. "Ah, I get it." Jules said. "This isn't about the charges. This is about the wedding."

"What? No, it isn't, don't be ridiculous."

"Don't you want to marry Sergio?" Jules asked.

"Of course I do! This isn't about him!" Anana protested.

"Sure looks like it," muttered Doreen.

"I am not freaking out about Sergio! I am freaking out because when we went to the bakery to order our wedding cake, there was one with all the Avengers on it set out on the counter for this ten-year-old kid's birthday party, and we had to spend thirty minutes talking ourselves out of buying that one instead. I'm freaking out because if we actually ate all the ramen we have stored in our pantry, it would probably give us dual heart attacks. _I'm freaking out_ because we have a weekly Mario Kart tournament to decide who has to clean the bathroom."

Taking a deep breath, Anana rubbed her eyes. "We are not functioning adults, okay? I just got _arrested_ , and if Sergio were here, he'd probably laugh and congratulate me on my life of crime." It was difficult to gesture wildly for effect when her hands were cuffed together, Anana was discovering.

"Well, do you want him to do that?"

Anana blinked at her. "What?"

Jules gave her a patient look. "Do you want to keep doing all those things with him, or do you want to become an 'adult'?"

"I… I don't want to become an adult," Anana said after a moment. "I don't want us to get boring. I want to keep having lightsaber duels, and doing shots every time someone fucks up on Hell's Kitchen."

"You don't have to stop doing any of those things. Marriage doesn't mean you're automatically going to change. It just means you have this other person to do all your weird crap with. And maybe one day, you start to mature a little, but it's okay because he's there doing it with you."

"But if he's ever in a coma, you're the one who has to decide whether or not to pull the plug," Amy cut in.

"Hey, princess, wanna shut the fuck up?" Doreen said mildly.

The slow smile that stretched across Amy's face made Anana think of crocodiles and Anthony Hopkins's Hannibal Lecter.

Jules shifted away from Amy and refocused on Anana. "Except maybe give that drinking game a rest, that sounds a little dangerous."

"Yeah, we never make it all the way through the episode."

* * *

After dragging Kyle away from where he was curled up on the bathroom floor, Sergio returned to find a large crowd gathered at the bar. He set Kyle down in an empty chair and made his way to the front, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Sure enough, Peter and Alan were standing behind the bar. In front of them on the counter was a line of shots filled to the brim. Peter was holding a lighter, and Sergio felt a thrill of fear.

"I can do it!" Peter was yelling.

Alan had his hands out, and seemed to be reaching for the lighter. "Peter, just give me the—"

"No!" Peter jerked his arm away.

Sergio leaned over the bar. "What the hell is going on?"

Alan glanced at him. "Peter got it into his head that he could make flaming shots."

"I _can_ , you just don't trust me. You think I'm a screw up," Peter said angrily.

"No one thinks that," Alan adopted a reassuring tone and threw Sergio a warning look; Sergio barely repressed his snort in time.

Peter did not seem to notice in any case. "Well, I'm not! Just cause you're Mr. Perfect, doesn't mean—" Whatever he was going to say next would remain a mystery, however; as he waved his arm for emphasis, he managed to knock over the line of shot glasses, sending their contents spilling across the counter. Unfortunately, the hand that hit the glasses was also the one holding the lighter—and Peter apparently had not realized it was lit.

The burst of flame was larger than Sergio would've thought, and pandemonium erupted as people screamed and jerked out of the way. Peter merely stared with wide-eyed horror.

" _Fuck_ ," Sergio exclaimed, grabbing a nearby bar rag and throwing it over the fire to try and smother it. This was an even worse idea; the rag ignited faster than tissue paper.

"What was that thing soaked in, _rum_?!" Sergio screamed at Peter, and judging by the guilty look that entered Peter's eyes, that was exactly what it was soaked in.

Alan appeared at Sergio's elbow—and Sergio hadn't even realized he'd been gone—holding the fire extinguisher. "Move, Peter!"

Some life seemed to snap back into Peter, and he turned with renewed animosity to his brother. "Oh, _here_ we go, the prodigal son come to save the day again! You just _have_ to be the hero, don't you?"

"Peter, _get the fuck out of the way_!"

"No!" Peter pointed a finger at Alan, the effect of which was somewhat diminished by the fact that his sleeve was smoking. "You know, I'm sick of—"

 _Crack_! Peter hit the floor. Sergio and Alan blinked in astonishment at Kyle, who was rubbing his knuckles and swaying slightly. He grinned sloppily at them. "You should probably, yanno, put out the—fire thing."

Alan shook his head, then aimed the fire extinguisher at the bar, dousing it with foam. By this point, most everyone else had run out of the building, and Sergio wasn't quite sure when the fire alarm had gone off, but it was now ringing shrilly in his ears. "Okay, Kyle, c'mere, let's get out of here." He wrapped Kyle's arm around his shoulders and steered him toward the door, Alan following and dragging Peter behind him. They emerged to a mass of panicked drunks, and police and fire department sirens wailed in the background.

Spotting Miksa and Toluk hovering near the door, Sergio steered Kyle over to them and sat him down on the ground at their feet. "Make sure he doesn't choke on his own vomit, I'll be right back."

"Where are you going?" Miksa asked as Sergio made to turn back to the bar.

"There was a stoner guy in the bathroom and I don't see him anywhere, I wanna make sure he got out," Sergio explained. Ignoring the funny looks the twins gave him, he pulled his jacket over his mouth and nose and went back into the bar.

* * *

Anana hung up the phone. "Dammit, Sergio's not answering." She sighed. "This is what we get for scheduling our bachelor and bachelorette parties on the same night."

"Yeah, why _did_ you guys do that?" Jules asked.

"This is the only night a week that we don't have a new episode of a show to watch," Anana replied.

Doreen considered this. "Fair enough."

Amy sat up. "I could call my mother to come bail us out," she offered. "She's always sitting by the phone waiting for my dad to call, so she'll definitely answer."

Anana and Jules glanced nervously at each other. "Oh, Amy, I don't know. We wouldn't want to inconvenience her," Anana said tentatively.

"Are you kidding?" Doreen stared at her with incredulity. "You're gonna pass up the chance to meet the person who birthed _this_?" She waved her hand at Amy, and turned to her. "Call her, _please_."

* * *

"This is BULLSHIT!" Sergio screamed. The cop ignored his outburst and shoved him in the back of the car, slamming the door behind him.

Still preoccupied with grumbling to himself, it took Sergio a moment to realize that Alan and Kyle were his companions in the back of the car. He pointed a finger at them. "They can't do this," he insisted. "We didn't do anything. We were trying to stop Peter."

"The manager linked us to Peter," Alan said, sounding exhausted.

"Don't even get me started on the manager," Sergio fumed. "Victor is a dick, he's not mad about the fire, he's just pissed that we wasted a bunch of alcohol."

"He just answered the police's questions. And since Peter's being carted off to the ER for his concussion," Here Alan leveled a look at an oblivious Kyle, "they wanted someone to hold accountable right now."

Sergio eyed Kyle. "Yeah, okay, I have a question about that," he said to Kyle. "How in the _hell_ did you manage to knock out someone when you are falling-on-your-ass drunk?"

Kyle looked amused. "Dude." He waved his hand at himself. " _Texan_."

"They probably teach it in college over there," Alan supplied.

This was not helping Sergio's budding headache, and he pressed his forehead against the cool window. Outside, he could see the twins talking to the police officer. He wondered what they were saying. Probably finding a way to blame it all on him.

After a moment, however, Toluk walked over to the car and leaned down—quite a far way down; Toluk was rather tall—to speak into the car through the cracked window.

"Hey, we're gonna follow you to the station to bail you out," Toluk said.

Sergio stared. "…Why?"

Toluk looked as though he was holding back a smirk. "You're not a bad guy," he said. "And this wasn't your fault. Which is what we told the police."

That was even more difficult to comprehend. " _What_ ," he managed, but Toluk was already walking away.

* * *

"Thank you again, Ms. DuBois," Anana said.

Amy's mother smiled kindly. "Of course, I'm always happy to help out Amy's friends."

Jules and Anana shared a look at the word 'friends'. "As soon as the cops give us our stuff back, we'll write you a check," Jules swore.

"Oh, I'm sure. It's no trouble, really. Especially since Amy's bail was _much_ higher than any of yours," Ms. DuBois noted.

"Yeah, she got a bit too enthusiastic about a strip search," Doreen explained.

Ms. DuBois looked horrified. "They strip searched you?"

"No, Amy just went a little overboard trying to volunteer for one," Doreen said. "They stopped her before she could get her shirt all the way off, though."

There was still concern on Ms. DuBois's face, and she went over to where Amy was still handcuffed to a chair and started speaking to her in an irritated whisper.

Anana leaned back against the counter with Jules, Sarah, and Doreen to wait for the police to finish processing their bail. Doreen was trying not to touch anything, as her hands were still sticky from the milk. Jules had her arms around Sarah, who appeared to be napping on her shoulder.

From down the hall, a male voice drifted towards them. "Anana's gonna _kill_ me."

Anana looked up as a group of men in handcuffs were led into the police station. "Sergio?"

Sergio's head jerked up. "Anana?"

She made her way over to the group; several of them, she noted, appeared to be smoldering. "What happened?"

"Peter had a mid-life crisis and set the bar on fire," Sergio explained.

"Peter's whole life is a crisis," Anana replied. "Remember that time he inhaled all those chemicals and ran through the streets with black goo on his face?"

"Oh yeah." Sergio smiled fondly at the memory. "The police almost shot him cause they thought he was a zombie." He looked over Anana's shoulder at the line of women who had just been released from their own handcuffs. "What about you guys?"

"We got arrested for breaking into a gym. And spilling milk on one of the treadmills."

"Why is Amy still handcuffed to the chair?"

"She tried to proposition the arresting officer."

Sergio frowned in confusion. "I didn't know she was going to be at your bachelorette party."

"Neither did I," Anana said.

"Sergiooooo," Kyle stumbled over and swung his arm around Sergio's shoulders. "Best bachelor party _ever_ , man."

"Hi, Kyle," Amy called from across the police station, waving as best she could with her hands cuffed.

Kyle grew instantly wary, pulling back. "Sergio, why is the bad-touch lady here?"

"Just go stand behind Miksa and Toluk," Sergio advised, patting him. Kyle nodded and lurched away in the general direction of his companions.

* * *

"And so," Doreen said, concluding her speech, "that is how I know these two idiots will be together forever. Because even during the wildest bachelor-slash-bachelorette parties I've ever been to, all they wanted to do was get home to each other."

She raised her glass, the guests applauded, and Sergio and Anana leaned in and kissed once again.

Later, during their slow dance—which was mostly spent trying to get all the frosting off each other's faces from their enthusiastic smashing of wedding cake—Sergio tilted his head down and murmured, "So what _is_ the third grade incident?"

Anana swiped at a spot of buttercream near the corner of his eye and grinned. "Oh, that. So there was this abandoned house that was supposedly haunted by this old ghost named Gunnar. One day, the twins put a frog in my backpack, so I locked them in the house's basement for three hours."

"Is it really haunted?"

She shrugged. "They claim to have seen the ghost, but who knows. Honestly, they should thank me. They were the most popular kids in school for the rest of the year because of it."

"You're gonna make a great mom."

"Damn straight," she replied, resting her head on his shoulder.

They swayed lazily on the dance floor for a few more minutes, until Kyle yelled, "Guys! The Walking Dead's on!"

Sergio and Anana linked their hands together and made their way over to the large television in the corner where everyone else was gathering.

"I can't believe you guys rented out a TV so you could stick to your weekly scheduled shows," Sarah said as she held out a bucket of popcorn.

"Shhh, don't talk when Michonne is on," Sergio whispered back as he pulled up a chair, and Anana curled up against him. When the commercial break started, he leaned in and murmured in her ear, "You know, we could probably get our hands on some red and gold food coloring and just turn the wedding cake into an Iron Man one."

Anana grabbed his face and kissed him.


End file.
